3071-The political economy of new slavery

Geraldine Van Bueren 245
Japanese Americans and Germany with regard to Holocaust victims but
this would not be as equitable as an international settlement. If payments
were on a national basis then the descendants of slaves in Brazil, for
example, may receive nothing whereas descendants of slaves in America
may receive compensation. This is not to argue against groups in individual
countries taking action but rather to argue for an internationally
co-ordinated approach. To have a consistent international approach
there would need to be some form of international body or commission
appointed to investigate the claim for reparations, to assess the quantum
and to decide the form.
There has already been a claim for quantum. One body, the African
World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission, has set the figure
at $777 trillion from former colonial states for slavery at a meeting in
Accra in August 1999. At first sight this may appear purely symbolic and
a grossly inflated sum but Germany has paid some 4 million claims, and
a total of $55 billion has been disbursed both to the state of Israel and
to individual victims (Schoenfield, 2000). Germany’s gross violation of
human rights continued for less than 25 years, while slavery and the
slave trade took place over a period of three centuries.
All of these issues are complex, but that is not a reason to shy away
from them. Human rights have always been concerned with complex
decisions. This is a good reason for an international commission to be
established to investigate the nature of the claim for reparations, the
claimants and the nature of the payment. For such a commission to have
international authority it needs to be set up under an international mandate
such as an international charter. It would enjoy greater authority if
the commission were set up under the auspices of the United Nations.
The United Nations Charter allows for this possibility. The representation
on the commission needs not only to be global but also balanced as to
gender.
If states, despite their responsibility for the slave trade and therefore
piracy, refuse to agree to the establishment of a commission there still
remains the possibility of a Slavery Reparations Commission established
by civil society. This would be following the precedent of the Women’s
International War Crimes Tribunal 2000 on Japanese Military Sexual
Slavery. 20 The authority would come not from a state but from the global
community to whom beneficiaries of the slave trade have a duty under
international law to render account. As with the Women’s International
War Crimes Tribunal, a Slave Trade Reparations Commission would step
into the vacuum left by the states rather than replacing their role. It
would also help bring the former slave-trading states to recognize their